Does Language Affect Our Thoughts English Language Essay

I love going and I have been to many topographic points and the point of travels is to larn new things and one thing that I have learnt from all my travels is that, people from different topographic points, think and perceive things otherwise, no two people in the universe think the same manner. This difference in perceptual experience in many instances is due to the civilization they come from. I got believing and besides realized that even linguistic communication can hold influence over their ideas, after all linguistic communication is an built-in portion of every civilization.

Like for illustration, in India, pupils refer to their instructor as “ sir ” or “ dame ” , this possibly because they are talking in their several female parent linguas. They are so used to speaking to their seniors with words that are considered respectful and when they speak to their friends and people near to them they use more insouciant words. The same scenario is in the US, pupils refer to their instructors as Mr. or Mrs. , and both these manners are acceptable but if the pupils where to exchange topographic points so the pupils would happen these mentions really different and sometimes even “ eldritch ” .

I have decided to turn to this issue of how the linguistic communication that people speak in might impact their thought. I am traveling write an article about it, I have chosen this I would be able reference to mentions to turn out the genuineness of the work and I could mention to interviews and other articles on the same subject.

( Word count- 250 )

12th Dec 2012, Sreenidhi Times:

It so happens that “ whether or non linguistic communication affects the ideas in our head ” is one of the major unsolved inquiries in the survey of linguistics. This is really of import since linguistic communication happens to be a critical function as a tool to assist people in understanding and interpreting observations, reflect on ideals or in comprehending new state of affairss they encounter and besides in showing one ‘s ain beliefs and sentiments to others. We take the linguistic communications we know for granted and ne’er even bother to recognize the troubles we would confront if we did n’t cognize them.

Benjamin Whorf, the pupil of the celebrated anthropologist Edward Sapir said that linguistic communication has supreme power over the head, and his striking prose convinced an full coevals into believing that our female parent lingua restricts what we are able to believe, his exact words were, “ linguistic communication non merely influences thought ; linguistic communication determines thought-thought can non be without linguistic communication ” , but most psychologist do n’t look to hold with this statement. They believe the head is capable of believing with tie ining it with words ; for illustration, it is really simple to conceive of an object bounce without holding to verbalise it.

To truly see if linguistic communication does act upon our ideas, Hanako Yoshida and Linda Smith of Indiana University came up with an experiment to prove it. The experiment takes aid of a lingual characteristic of the Nipponese linguistic communication: the fact that articles do n’t needfully give any thought of what type of noun we are talking about. For illustration, in English, we would state “ some sugar ” sometimes-even say “ the sugar ” but we ne’er say “ a sugar ” by making this we give an thought of what the stuff is made of. At the same clip we ne’er say some T.V, we would state a T.V, by this association of articles we are able to state whether an object is a stuff or a form. This is non the instance in Japanese, where it is possible to mention to saccharify or T.V without holding to bespeak what the stuff is made of. The experiment was performed with immature Nipponese kids who had n’t yet larn the Nipponese word for some ; the consequence showed that even though they did n’t cognize the word they were still able to understand what the stuff was made of. The experiment showed that, when the kids were non cognizant of the words they should utilize to show what they see and when they were ideas the new words they were able to break tie in them and understand them.

An extra interesting fact about linguistic communication is, the slang of a individual is really of import. Research has proved that if topics like scientific discipline were taught in the each individual ‘s female parent lingua, they would be able understand and retrieve things better.

There is one other fact that can be observed while comparing English and Gallic. When we are seeking to state person how old we are, we would state “ I am 10years old ” but the same statement in French is “ J’ai 10 autonomic nervous systems ” which literally translates to “ I have 10 old ages ” . We can see how actual significance differs between these two linguistic communications but the basic thought to show one ‘s age is the same, this signifies that these ideas irrespective of the linguistic communication used to show it, the significance of what a individual is seeking convey is the same every bit long as the relate subject being discussed is the same, but for the fact the niceties and the beginning of the idea is differentaˆ¦like in Gallic what it means is that I have lived 10 years..or like in American Indians or any ancient folk they refer as “ holding seen 80 Moons ”

There is this one other thing that stands out when we compare the same two linguistic communications ; French and English let us see how linguistic communication can impact thought. In Gallic, by utilizing the words cousinA orA cousine-meaning cousin- in a conversation we allow the hearer to cognize the gender of the individual we are talking about, since in this linguistic communication we associate all the words with their several gender it becomes apparent what is that individuals gender whereas in English I could state I spent the dark at my friends without every holding to advert the gender. Even in some linguistic communication similar German, Hebrew and Russian the nouns are even given gender. For case in Russian, H2O is referred to as she and in French a adult male ‘s staff of life is addressed as feminine, this does n’t intend that these linguistic communications unusual instead these objects are given specific gender merely to heighten and assist the regulations of their several linguistic communications.

Since we have been utilizing our several mother-tongues since the early phases of our childhood it becomes a wont and one time a wont is learnt it is about impossible to lose it, what I mean to state is, for illustration, every clip a Russian sees H2O he/she associates it with the feminine gender non because they want to but because they so use to naming it so. Therefore I conclude by stating, yes linguistic communication does act upon our ideas but non in every case and in every determination we make.